How We Teach

CML faculty helped students of John R. Lewis High School conduct oral histories and local research on community topics important to them, including gun violence and immigration, and then publish those stories as online StoryMaps.
CML faculty helped students of John R. Lewis High School conduct oral histories and local research on community topics important to them, including gun violence and immigration, and then publish those stories as online StoryMaps.

... not a new history but a more profound and indeed more complex understanding of our old history

—Lawrence W. Levine

We created this center as a place where research and teaching meet to reimagine the practice of history through a dignity-conscious, non-hierarchical approach that emphasizes care, collaboration, and justice. Restoring lost pieces of our collective past allows us to trace and repair their lasting effects, as reflected in the "legacies" of our name. We believe learning is most effective when done in collaboration, and we emphasize active student engagement through a variety of methods and sources that make teaching vital to the reparative acts of disciplinary un-making and transformation.

We value dialogue with teachers, archivists, librarians, community historians, and all scholars, regardless of affiliation. Universities are part of a broader community, so we actively consider how to teach in ways that stretch outside them. This community-grounded learning acknowledges that we, as academics, are only part of broader, ongoing efforts, so we actively seek out community experts with lived experiences and knowledge that help us understand heterogeneous influences at play in our history.

Our pedagogy of Affective Historical Praxis reflects our values, methodological approaches, and research emphasis while insisting on transparency—an honesty about scholarly positioning and arguments. To further nurture the next generation of scholars committed to justice-centered research, we build community, centering faculty-student mentorship, peer-to-peer guidance, and opportunities for professional development that include prolific student presentations, digital and in-person, to audiences at every level. 

To achieve this, we employ public-facing digital humanities projects. We learn through weekly dialogues and coalition-building sessions, celebrating interdisciplinary expertise while supporting one another as members of a community. Practicing ethical humanistic digital scholarship helps us make unseen pasts legible and train a new lens on old questions. Digital platforms let us share our work within and beyond academia. CML faculty make our pedagogy available to all teachers, at any classroom level, who want to engage students in uncovering previously ignored lives and experiences.

 

Two CML Seniors "Outstanding"

Two CML Seniors "Outstanding"

If an academic center's buttons could burst, CML's would pop with pride over the scholarly achievements and, now, graduation laurels racked up by two of our most active undergraduates, Shemika Curvey and Andrew Snowman, who both call CML central to their scholarly growth.

CML trains John Lewis students

CML trains John Lewis students

 For the “Stories” community action project, students immersed themselves in pedagogy and research practices devised at the Center for Mason Legacies. With guidance from CML’s Manuel-Scott and mentors from Leadership Fairfax, March and her students set out “to preserve and honor the diverse stories of our community” in Springfield, Virginia.